If you are about to have a website built, the first real decision is what to build it on. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or something written from scratch. The choice matters less for how the site looks on day one than for what it costs you to run and change over the next few years.
Here is an honest comparison of the two ends of that range, and how to work out which one your situation actually calls for.
WordPress, and what it is good at
WordPress runs roughly 43% of all websites, which makes it the default answer for good reason. It is quick to get going, there is a large market of themes and plugins, and almost any developer you hire later will already know it.
The practical benefit is that you are not starting from nothing. Need a booking form, an online shop, a multilingual site or a way to collect reviews? Somebody has already built and tested that, and you can add it in an afternoon rather than commissioning it.
The other benefit is that you are not locked to one agency. If we build you a WordPress site and you later want somebody else to maintain it, you can hand it over. That is worth more than it sounds.
Where WordPress starts to fight you
The limits show up when your requirements stop matching what the themes and plugins expect. Anything genuinely bespoke means either bending a plugin into a shape it was not designed for, or writing custom code that then has to survive every future plugin update.
Plugins also carry a maintenance cost that nobody mentions at the start. Every one is code from a third party that needs updating, can conflict with another, and occasionally gets abandoned. A site running thirty plugins is a site that needs looking after.
Performance is the other common complaint, and it is usually a symptom rather than the disease. A heavy theme plus a stack of plugins produces a slow site. A carefully built WordPress site is perfectly fast.
Custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript
The alternative is building the site directly in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with PHP or similar behind it where something needs to happen on the server.
You get exactly what you specify, with nothing loaded that you are not using. That usually means a faster site, because there is no theme framework or plugin overhead to carry. It also means complete control over markup and structure, which matters for both accessibility and search.
The trade-offs are real. It takes longer to build, it costs more up front, and editing content means either a developer or a separate system for you to work in. If you plan to publish several posts a week yourself, a custom site without a content editor will frustrate you quickly.
How to choose between them
Ignore which one sounds more impressive and answer these instead.
- How often will the content change, and who changes it? Frequent edits by non-technical staff point firmly at WordPress
- Does anything you need fall outside what a plugin already does? If yes, custom work is coming either way
- How much does page speed matter to you? If you compete on local search or run paid traffic, it matters more than you might think
- What is your budget over three years, not three months? WordPress is cheaper to start and carries an ongoing maintenance cost; custom is the reverse
For most small and mid-sized businesses, a well-built WordPress site is the right answer. Custom becomes worth it when you have a specific requirement that platforms handle badly, when performance is a competitive advantage, or when the site is the product rather than a brochure for it.
It is also not strictly one or the other. A largely static site with WordPress running just the blog is a common and sensible middle ground.
How we work
We build both, which means we have no incentive to push you toward one. We would rather ask what the site has to do and recommend the cheaper option when it fits.
On WordPress we keep the plugin count deliberately low, choose themes that will not need replacing in eighteen months, and hand over a site you or anyone else can maintain. On custom builds we write the HTML, CSS and JavaScript ourselves, so there is nothing in the page that is not doing a job.
E-commerce and landing pages
If you are selling online, tell us what you are selling and roughly how many products, and we will recommend a platform. The right answer for twelve products is not the right answer for twelve thousand.
We also build individual landing pages that match an existing site, which is usually what you want for a specific campaign rather than a full rebuild.
Whichever route suits you, get in touch and describe what you need. You will get a straight answer on approach, cost and timeline, including when we think the smaller option is the better one.
